This book explores the relationship between custom and Islamic law and seeks to uncover the role of custom in the construction of legal rulings.
The book “Custom in Islamic Law and Legal Theory: The Development of the Concepts of Urf and Adah in the Islamic Legal Tradition” was written by Ayman Shabana and published by Palgrave Macmillan.
On a deeper level, however, it deals with the perennial problem of change and continuity in the Islamic legal tradition (or any tradition for that matter). It is argued that custom (urf and adah) was one of the important tools that the jurists used to accommodate change and to adjust the rulings of shari`ah to the ever changing conditions in particular social and historical contexts. The book presents a diachronic study of the development of the concept of custom (and the different terms that have been associated with it) in the Islamic legal tradition.
About the Author:
Ayman Shabana is Visiting Assistant Professor at Georgetown University s School of Foreign Service, Qatar.
Table of Contents
Custom and Islamic Law in Modern Scholarship
Normative Foundations of the Concept of Custom in the Islamic Legal Tradition
From ˓Ādah to ˓Urf Theological Foundations of the Concept of Custom as reflected in the Debate over Causality
Custom between the Theoretical School and the Applied School
The Expansion of Legal Theory
Custom and Legal Maxims
Custom and the Objectives of Sharī˓ah
Custom, Legal Application, and the Construction of Reality
Bibliographic Information
Title: Custom in Islamic Law and Legal Theory: The Development of the Concepts of Urf and Adah in the Islamic Legal Tradition
Author: Ayman Shabana
Publisher: Palgrave Macmillan
Language: English
Length: 263 pages
ISBN: 978-0-230-10592-8
Pub. Date: January 19, 2011